take don't give
by prouvaires
Summary: -it's a little about proving something and maybe slightly about lust but mostly about being needed.- MerlinVivian.


rebound: _vb (intr) _**1**. to spring back, as from a sudden impact. **2. **to misfire, especially so as to hurt the perpetrator. _n _**3. **the act or instance of rebounding.

**A/N: **answer to the dictionary challenge in the Keeping The Magic Secret forum. My word was _rebound_, and I've wanted to write this pairing for a _long _time. I was bet that I couldn't write a pairing that no-one's written before … if I'm wrong and this one has been done, feel free to drop me a PM and I'll change it.

Also not sure about the rating – there's nothing graphic, but if you think I should change it to an M please PM me or leave a review saying so. I don't want to cause offence or publish something inappropriate to its rating.

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She's vapid and vain and he's quiet and pensive and they're so completely wrong for each other it spurs them on further and further. Their brief meetings are a battle of wills and limbs and lips and it's not at all about giving, only about taking. They're dead if they're caught, but the danger adds a thrill until being with each other becomes an addiction stronger than any drug.

It's a little about proving something and maybe slightly about lust but mostly about being _needed. _They're so hungry for the knowledge that someone else needs them to keep their world turning they keep playing this perilous game, dancing closer and closer to the knife-edge that will plunge them into the flames.

She's been invited back to Camelot purely because if she is not, her father will cause a war. She doesn't really care that no-one wants her around. At first it was all about Arthur and loving him and wanting to be his queen, but now it's just the prince's mild-mannered servant and his eyes that bring her to pieces in his arms.

She knows she's just his rebound girl, there because the woman he thought maybe he'd like to be with forever betrayed him and forced his hand and made him lonelier and bitterer than any man his age should ever be. Everyone knows the story of the Lady Morgana and how King Uther of Camelot is wild with the loss of her. But no-one knows about the young warlock who'd give his life to get her back.

The first time he went with her into her chambers and tumbled her back into the sheets, she'd been terrified when at the moment of his peak the posts of her bed had creaked and groaned and sprouted leaves and flowers and she'd caught the flash of bronze that betrayed him. He'd begged her not to tell anyone, and she'd just laughed and replied: "who on earth do you think would listen to me?"

She never made a promise, but she's kept his secret because, in all honesty, if he was taken from her she thinks she'll lose her will to live. Don't mistake her; it's not love. It never was, and she doubts it will ever be. Her heart still belongs the blonde-haired crown prince and she's learned a lot about _action-reaction _in weeks and months past. His love for the dumpy maidservant who follows him everywhere equals heartbreak and loneliness for her. She's beautiful – with the Lady Morgana gone, the most beautiful woman in Camelot – but he barely glances her way, perhaps embarrassed by the past and his foolishness.

She thinks of him sometimes. She doesn't really mean to, and she tries to clear her head quickly because such thoughts only bring tears. But then lips on her neck jolt her back to the present and she'll moan and smile and giggle and forget about everything as her body moves against his and he's _god _for several minutes that are far too short, and then they're straightening clothes and re-dressing and patting hair down and sneaking off in opposite directions.

They meet often, in out-of-the-way places that include cupboards and unused bedrooms and clearings in the forest. Sometimes they give in and play a little closer to the fire, meeting in her rooms while her unsuspecting guards take an unexpected nap outside. He'll whisper a spell and she'll hear them slump to the floor, then ten seconds later her door will creak open and he'll be across the room, taking her in his arms immediately, the door swinging shut and locking itself at his whispered command.

Blonde hair meshes with black as his eyes lock onto hers and his lips fasten to hers like a drowning man, and she's smiling with the wealth of feelings that threaten to drown her as he presses her down into the bed, his warm weight pinning her to the mattress in a way that makes her want to be there forever.

They get two months of freedom before her father returns to take her home. She cries the whole way, and when her father asks what the matter is she just turns her head away and he pulls out his sword and threatens to run Arthur through.

"It's not Arthur," she wails loudly, clutching his wrist and forcing the sword down. "That's the _problem_."

He takes her at her word and leaves her with her maids in her pretty, tower-top bedroom. He's a father, and fathers aren't good at lovelorn daughters. She cries until she's run out of tears, and then she instructs her maids to make her beautiful. They twist and pin her hair, coax the redness from her eyes and when they're done she stares proudly into the mirror, blowing her reflection a kiss.

After all, she's Vivian. There are men wherever she turns and whenever she wants, and he's just another one to be confined to the private recesses of her memory.

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**A/N: **Hmm … that took me eight tries, and I'm still not happy with it.

Anyway, thank you for reading and please don't favourite without leaving a review!


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